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Coding agents specify the task. spec-editor specifies the system.
Coding agents are very good at writing code. spec-editor keeps what they are building: a specification of the whole system that every change answers to. Products are named only as examples of a family, as of October 2026.
Coding agents
What coding agents are good at
In the editor
Interactive agents, such as Cursor and Claude Code, write code while you watch and steer. Feedback is fast and there is almost nothing to set up. When you steer by prompt and accept by feel, it is called vibe coding.
In the background
Autonomous agents, such as Devin, Factory and Codex, take a task from a tracker or a chat and return a pull request.
A plan first
Several of them write a plan or a task specification before the code and wait for approval, with acceptance criteria for that task.
The gap
A task specification is not a specification of the system
A task spec answers what to change today. A real product also needs to know what exists, what every earlier change promised, and whether it still holds.
| Question | A coding agent | spec-editor |
|---|---|---|
| What does the specification describe? | One task: what to change and how. Some agents write it as a plan or a task spec and wait for approval. | The whole system as it is now: one requirement per file, with an address in the tree of the system. |
| What happens to it after the merge? | It stays with the pull request, if it is kept at all. | It is the model. The next change edits the requirement instead of writing a new spec. |
| Who decides what to build? | The agent reads the prompt or the ticket. | Analysts read the source independently, reconcile their results and check them against the source. |
| How is "done" decided? | Tests and a review of the pull request. | Acceptance criteria inside the requirement, run as commands or judged checks. With Autonomic, on a test stand, and review stages decide by evidence. |
| Does a later task keep what an earlier one promised? | Not what it is built for. | The criteria stay with the requirement and run again with every change to it. |
| Which code implements a requirement? | Not what it is built for. | @implements markers link code and requirement both ways, and spec-editor validate checks the links. |
| What did the running system do? | Not what it is built for. | Operation events and the run-time trace map show which requirements actually ran. |
Agentic engineering
Code you can account for
Vibe coding gets you code. Agentic engineering gets you code you can account for: the specification it satisfies, who checked it, and what it did once it ran. spec-editor keeps all three next to the code.
The specification it satisfies
A requirement in the model, with an address and acceptance criteria.
Who checked it
Criteria that run, not a report by the agent that wrote the code.
What it did
Operation events bound to the requirement whose code wrote them.
Together
Use both
Keep the coding agent you like. spec-editor tells it what to build and checks what it built: any agent that speaks MCP reads the model, one element at a time. spec-editor Autonomic adds its own delivery team for the whole cycle on your subscriptions.
A coding agent alone is enough when
the task is small, the product is young, and you remember what every change promised.
You need spec-editor when
the product outgrows anyone's memory, and you need to know what should exist, what was built, and how you know it works.
How spec-editor compares with agent memory and other families of tools